Francie Turner
Frances "Francie" Turner is a New Zealand coxswain. She competed at the Rio Olympics with the New Zealand women's eight.Private life
Turner was born in Christchurch in 1992 and grew up on a dairy farm near Southbridge in Canterbury. She received her secondary education at Rangi Ruru Girls' School in Christchurch. She was then an extramural student at Massey University, from where she graduated with a Bachelor of Business Studies in 2013. She now lives in Hamilton and is trained by Dave Thompson, with Lake Karapiro as the training venue.Turner took up rowing while she was at Rangi Ruru. Her first international event was the 2009 World Rowing Junior Championships in Brive-la-Gaillarde, France, where she won a silver medal with the eight; Eve MacFarlane and Zoe Stevenson were also in the boat. In 2010 and 2011, she competed with the eight in the World Rowing U23 Championships in Brest, Belarus and Amsterdam, Netherlands, respectively. In both races, the team won the silver medal, beaten by the USA in 2010 and Canada in 2011.
In 2010, she coxed the New Zealand eight of the elite rowers at the World Rowing Championships held at Lake Karapiro in New Zealand; the team came eights.
Turner took a break from international rowing after the 2011 U23 championships. She started competing again in 2015 and won a silver medal at the World Rowing Championships with the women's eight, qualifying the boat for the 2016 Olympics. For the last few weeks prior to the Rio Olympics, the women's eight trained at Lake Bohinj in Slovenia. With the women's eight, she came fourth at the 2016 Rio Olympics.
